About the Authors

Xiaomin Han

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaomin Han, Jing Zhang

Affiliation Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Jing Zhang

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaomin Han, Jing Zhang

Affiliation Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Liang Guo

Affiliation Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co., Urumqi, People’s Republic of China

Rihui Cao

Affiliation Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co., Urumqi, People’s Republic of China

Yongzhen Li

Affiliation Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Ni Li

Affiliation Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Qin Ma

Affiliation Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co., Urumqi, People’s Republic of China

Jialin Wu

sisyimb@hotmail.com (SS); yanchang.wang@med.fsu.edu (YW); hsd_100@163.com (JW)

Affiliation Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co., Urumqi, People’s Republic of China

Yanchang Wang

sisyimb@hotmail.com (SS); yanchang.wang@med.fsu.edu (YW); hsd_100@163.com (JW)

Affiliation Department of Biomedical Sciences, College of Medicine, Florida State University, Tallahassee, Florida, United States of America

Shuyi Si

sisyimb@hotmail.com (SS); yanchang.wang@med.fsu.edu (YW); hsd_100@163.com (JW)

Affiliation Institute of Medicinal Biotechnology, Peking Union Medical College & Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences, Beijing, People’s Republic of China

Competing Interests

Liang Guo, Rihui Cao, Qin Ma and Jialin Wu are employed by the Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co. All the beta-carboline derivatives tested in this study were provided by Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd. (The Patent information of Xinjiang Huashidan Pharmaceutical Co. Ltd as following: title: Beta-carboline derivatives and their application, Patent number: 201010108531.4 (China application number). There are no other patents, products in development or other marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials, as detailed online in the guide for authors.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XMH JZ YCW SYS. Performed the experiments: XMH JZ YZL NL. Analyzed the data: XMH JZ YZL YCW SYS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: XMH JZ YZL NL LG RHC QM JLW YCW SYS. Wrote the paper: XMH JZ YZL YCW SYS. Contribution type: XMH JZ.